It seems like Venezuela has become a mandatory stop on the far-left fellowship tour. You're just not legit as a socialist extremist unless you stop in to see Hugo Chavez and engage in a little orgy of anti-Americanism. Moamar Qaddafi, Jimmy Carter, Harry Belafonte, Jesse Jackson, Saddam Hussein and countless lesser dictators, marxist dinosaurs and mush-headed entertainers have made the pilgrimage to Caracas to pay hommage to Chavez who they seem to greet as the second coming of Che Guevara or Simon Bolivar. Now these august ranks have been joined by Cindy Sheehan.
Sheehan went to Caracas to speak at the World Social Forum, an annual meeting of socialists, anarchists and anti-globalists which some have characterized as an ideological successor to the Communist International.
Sheehan and Chavez made joint appearances with much hugging and Bush-bashing. Chavez had Sheehan as a guest on his weekly radio broadcast and Sheehan invited the Venezuelan dictator to join her at her next vigil outside of the Bush ranch in Texas, where he leeringly suggested that they could share a tent.
Chavez urged Sheehan to run for President of the United States, not just against Dianne Feinstein for the Senate in California. She smiled when he said “Down with the U.S. empire! It must be said, in the entire world: Down with the empire!” Sheehan thanked Chavez for “supporting life and peace,” and said that she agreed with Harry Belafonte when he called Bush “the greatest terrorist in the world.” She announced that “George Bush is responsible for killing tens of thousands of innocent people.”
Also appearing with Sheehan and Chavez at a rally was Elma Beatriz Rosado, the widow of Puerto Rican revolutionary Filiberto Ojeda Rios who was killed at the age of 72 during an armored car robbery in Connecticut. Rosado accused the United States of murdering her bank-robbing, terrorist husband and Chavez agreed “They murdered him. Viva Filiberto!... Let’s follow his example.”
Article comments
1 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
I'm getting misty just thinking about it what this kind of meeting of the...well, "minds" isn't quite the word . . .
Anyway, thanks for the good laugh, Dave.
Oh, and death to America!
2 - Dave Nalle
America IS the great imperial tyrant. If they can find love amidst the ruins of post-soviet communism, who are we to tell them no?
Dave
3 - Maurice
I was reading an article by George Will last night and he used the words 'intellectually lazy'. What a polite way to describe people like Sheehan!
Fun article, Dave. Love is in the air....
4 - zingzing
it's like shooting fish in a barrel, isn't it dave? why don't you challenge yourself, rather than patting yourself on the ass?
i don't think that bush is worse than hitler, but he certainly has got a lot of blood on his hands. it's a fucked up world, and he's been doing some fucking.
5 - Dave Nalle
Zing, I've produced three articles in 24 hours. In order to do that it helps if at least one of them basically writes itself. You want something in-depth, go read my article on James K. Polk.
As for Sheehan's choice to visit Chavez, it's much more significant than you may realize. Bush may have 'blood on his hands' - show me a current world leader who doesn't have at least some. But Bush is NOT shutting down the free press in the US, arresting and jailing the political opposition, nationalizing our major industries, and bringing his people to the brink of starvation by shutting down agricultural production and cutting off imports.
The point is that Sheehan and others like her see Chavez as a hero solely because he hates Bush, ignoring the fact that he's a despotic megalomaniac who is worse than Bush in every way except not being an American Republican President. And I'm willing to state right now that before Chavez' career is over he will preside over a bloody civil war, a major invasion of a neighboring country and/or a mass genocide. Wait and see.
Dave
6 - Andy Marsh
so...was Pat Robertson right?
7 - Bing
I heard Harry Belafonte is going to be the best man and Jane Fonda, Nancy Pelosi, and Maureen Dowd are going to be bridesmaids.
8 - Andy Marsh
wouldn't wanna be a wedding crasher at htat wedding!!!
9 - lumpy
if someone other than pat robertson had said what he did and couched it in the right terms it might have been taken seriously. robertson being a whack-job kind of tainted the topic. but look at iraq. it's a perfect example of why we need to bring back political assassination as an option in foreign policy.
10 - Stephen Birmingham
Nice smear piece.
And now for a dose of reality:
11 - Andy Marsh
I don't need to read wikipedia to know who Chavez is...I've heard him spew his shit on TV plenty of times...
12 - lumpy
like most wikipedia entries that one is nice and sanitized. check out the link to obsidian wings. the last part of that article about chavez destructian of his economy is most significant.
13 - Dave Nalle
I don't know, the Wikipedia entry is pretty comprehensive, though the economic section is pretty out of date.
Dave
14 - Dana
Ok, to the person who wrote this.. how out of touch can you be???
Bush most certainly IS shutting down the free press. The mainstream media is about 90% zionistic lies. There is hardly a bit of truth in anything you read anymore and it is getting worse and worse thanks to rupert murdoch and his hijacking of what we see and hear.
You arent even allowed to protest anywhere near bush, he has created "a zone" so he doesnt have to see it. You are not allowed to wear t-shirts etc that say anything against america or the war or you go to jail.
The rest is self explanatory, get your head out of your ass
Bush may have 'blood on his hands' - show me a current world leader who doesn't have at least some. But Bush is NOT shutting down the free press in the US, arresting and jailing the political opposition, nationalizing our major industries, and bringing his people to the brink of starvation by shutting down agricultural production and cutting off imports.
15 - Dave Nalle
Dana, you're living in a world of dangerous self delusion.
You need to read this article.
Dave
16 - fos
zingzing, Patting oneself on the (as Forest Gump would say) Butt-tocks. Bet zingzing our little kinkey would love to pat Daves Butt-tocks.
Of course its a fucked up world. Been a whole lotta fucking going on.
zingzing. Sounds like a fucking mosquito flying around my face. Im sure a whole lota deleteing is forthwith. FUCKIT.